Plans for the construction of Avanti Grange secondary school in Bishop Stortford, UK, are moving forward following the appointment of ISG as the main contractor by Hertfordshire County Council. The new school, which will cost £32 million, will serve the new Stortford Fields and St Michael’s Hurst communities.
It will be built on an 11.4-hectare site on either side of the A120 road, with the school on one side and playing fields on the other. ISG will build a two-story concrete frame structure with a brick façade under the Pagabo capital works framework. The main school campus will be located in the southern zone of the split-site development and will have a linear form with a central full-height glazed spine connecting classroom, break out, and communal spaces.
Along with car parking and drop off areas, there will be a sports hall and a floodlit multi-use games area (MUGA). To offer natural drainage and increase biodiversity, a large attenuation swale – a pond structure – will be formed. Roof-mounted solar panels will provide energy.
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Other Developments for Avanti Grange Secondary School in Bishop Stortford
ISG will construct a 30-metre steel footbridge over the A120 to allow access to the northern campus zone. Five grass sports pitches will be spread across three large terraced areas at the northern site. The undulating terrain will be levelled using a cut and fill program, with excavated material retained on-site to form terraces for the new pitches.
“The scale and logistical complexity of the new Avanti Grange Secondary School project really mark this out as a keynote regional scheme that will have a positive legacy for the new communities it serves for many generations,” said ISG regional director Richard Skone. The school represents a significant investment in much-needed educational facilities for this prospering part of Bishop Stortford, and the use of the Pagabo framework has maximized procurement efficiencies to bring this exciting project to the site quickly, with expectations that Avanti Grange students will be able to enrol in September 2023.”
An initial intake of 180 students is planned for September 2023, with the school temporarily opening on the site of Avanti Meadows Primary School in September 2022, with 120 spaces.
